


London At Night

by potterlupinblack



Category: Infernal Devices Series - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Smut, heronstairs, oh the fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-06
Updated: 2016-07-06
Packaged: 2018-07-21 21:52:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7406296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/potterlupinblack/pseuds/potterlupinblack
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will goes out at night, sometimes Jem follows.</p>
            </blockquote>





	London At Night

**Author's Note:**

> Unedited, sorry :3

Will snorted as he passed a mundane man, spouting religious verses like they were gold pieces falling from his lips, like the uninterested London goers should be scrambling in the dirt for their share. Will knew what their beloved Angels really looked like, knew the harsh demand of their love, knew it with every scar and rune that marked his body, every secret he locked up inside. There was no salvation, only dust and shadows.

Will barely suppressed a smile as he imagined what Jem would say if he heard such melancholic thoughts; _which pretentious, poet did you steal that one from, William?_ Will had his words and Jem had his music. And they both had death blazing like a trail of fire in their wake.

The only difference was that Will had been twisted, burned, a grotesque monster hidden beneath a lovely layer of lies. Jem was a phoenix, he rose above his flames reborn, powerful. Beautiful. And that was the problem.

London was still just as busy under the stars as it were under the sun, a different kind of people populated the streets though. Gone were the gentlemen in their fine coats and gilded carriages, gone were the ladies, gowns high necked, faces painted to perfection. The day belonged to polite conversation, hard work, grey skies, finery and music. The night belonged to sin, debauchery, secrets kept and secrets made. The night belonged to Will.

He always started his journey there, where girls too young stood, shivering in pools of cold, yellow light, eyes as old and dead as the graveyards they usually end up in. Where monsters slunk around in the shadows, hands bloody, a mockery to the Shadowhunter Code. Where it was easier to remind himself where he belonged and what he didn't deserve.

Because if he were the night, then Jem was brilliant day, radiant, warm, so very far away. And wasn't it fitting that, as the dark creatures he hunted sought earth's beacon of light, so he chased Jem's aura of goodness. The dark parallel filled him with bitter humour, he threw back his head and let it pour from him, harsh and angry and _jarring_ , barely recognizable as laughter.

There was a falter behind him, a hesitation that marred with the rhythm and music of the night life. Will whirled around, knife already flying before he had fully turned. Jem caught the blade as if it were nothing, slim fingers curled around it tight, white and silver. White and silver and red.

"You always were a terrible aim," Will flinched from the wary note to Jem's voice, from his very presence in Will's night. The London slums were no place for Angels.

His blood dripped into the dirt and Will couldn't breathe. Will closed his eyes, unwilling to see the fear that would— should be there in Jem's, he knew what he looked like; wild, dangerous, feral. A creature untamed and frenzied, eyes fever bright in pale skin, laughing like a madman as the London drizzle slowly plastered his clothes to his taught body.

"You shouldn't be here, James." Even his voice was rough, a snarl of warning, the night was Will's and Will was the night.

"I go where you go. Always." Jem's answer was steady, unwavering, a fact more than a retort. Jem and Will, Day and Night.

"I'm not— I'm not good for you as I am right now. You don't need to see this part of me." He hadn't meant to plead.

"I see all of you, William Herondale," there was a pause as Jem came closer, fingertips ghosting over sensitive skin. They trailed fire over his cheek and down his neck, he shivered. "It does not frighten me."

"Why are you here?" Will asked, exploding from him in a rush. Jem's cool breath danced over his eyelids, burnt sugar. The fingertips paused, pressed to his collarbone light as a feather, yet somehow grounding him like a rock.

"I followed you," Jem said it simply, returning to his ministrations. Shuddering, Will grabbed Jem's delicate wrist, stilling him. It was hard to think, with him so close, achingly so.

"No," Will let his eyes open, let them dive deep into the pools of silver waiting. He searched Jem's face, emotion— hungry and raw— swallowing his feeble self control. Leaning impossibly closer, Will whispered; "Why are you _here_?"

Will's knife clattered to the ground, Jem's bloody hand coming to rest upon his heart, his other guiding Will's to do the same above his.

"You were in pain." Jem's voice was steady but his heart was not. It fluttered, a bird inside a fragile cage, seeking freedom. Will's fingertips curled into the fabric of his shirt, reeling the slender Shadowhunter forwards until their bodies were a hairsbreadth apart, throwing off heat. He longed to close that distance, it tightened the muscles of his stomach, sang through his veins, sent shivers up and down his body.

He wanted to not know where he ended and Jem began. Cheeks flushed a tantalizing pink, Jem stared up at him, chest heaving with each ragged breath. Groaning in surrender, Will arched his back, the slide of Jem's firm body on his own an almost painfully pleasurable experience. Jem's lips parted with soft a sigh, eyes fluttering closed.

"You shouldn't be here, James." He said again, breathy and pleading. Jem let out a noise, low and surprised and wanting. His thin chest brushed against Will with every harsh breath, eyes devouring Will's, quicksilver bright.

"I go where you go," Jem's mouth tilted upwards at the breathless parody of their earlier words, their faces were so close Jem's lips just barely brushed his own, butterfly wings murmuring words into his skin.

Will liked they way Jem's lips were soft and pink and warm, liked the way Jem's waist fit perfectly into into his hands, liked how the silver of Jem's lashes framed his eyes, liked the sleek, graceful lines of Jem's body, the feathery softness of his hair, those long, slender musicians fingers, the way his head would tilt when confused, his laugh, light and tinkling, like a thousand tiny bells in the breeze. It was moments like those, when his world inexplicably narrowed, somehow folding and compacting until everything was Jem and Jem was everything, that Will forgot that he wasn't supposed to harbour these thoughts in his mind about his parabatai.

"What if I went to a bar full of whores?" Will whispered, shivering at the silky slide of their lips. Jem raised a thin, pale eyebrow, lips twitching against his own.

"Then I would follow."

"That's a sight I would pay to see, dear, morally upstanding James Carstairs with a whore in his prudish lap," it came out light and teasing, soft into a night that was harsh. Jem's mouth twisted into a mischievous grin, the sight almost too much for Will to bare. Smiling like that, Jem could have been the Devil himself, beautiful enough to earn the title of God's Favourite, wicked enough to be cast down from heaven. Will's fingers dug into Jem's flesh, pressing their bodies even closer.

"Why, William, I do believe in training I end up with you in my lap a fair amount of the time, do I not? It seems you've already made yourself quite the tab," Jem spoke the words lightly, with just the hint of boyish glee, as he always did when he was insulting Will.

"Did you just call me a whore, Carstairs?" Will hissed playfully, his breath was speeding up, his blood racing with a strange anticipation. Jem's mere presence— so close the only thing stopping him from melting into Jem's skin was their clothing— was a drug, the more he breathed the other boy in, the more his conscious was clouded with the fucking taste of Jem with his every spoken word.

"Well," Jem murmured, tilting his sharp chin ever so slightly, so that his lips hovered just so above Will's. "You said it, Herondale, not me."

And then they were kissing, hot and needy, hands sliding and gripping flesh and clothing and hair. Will devoured the sweet taste of Jem's lips, tongue tracing their perfect outline as Jem swayed into him, hands tugging at the hair above his neck. The action sparked something in Will and he groaned, low and desperate in his throat.

It was Will that let out a gasp as Jem pulled harder, Will who's mouth was suddenly invaded by a probing tongue, Will who felt the rough brick of a wall against his back as Jem's slim body pinned him there, holding him in place. Will who was left a dishevelled, panting mess, quivering with desire in the face of Jem's dominance. They pulled apart, staring at each other with wide eyes, breath pulled from their lungs and into the night with fervor. A lovely pink blush bloomed over Jem's high cheekbones, staining his pale skin with vibrant colour. Will grinned.

"Oh," Jem seemed surprised with himself, and a little sheepish. He gently eased the force of his body pressing Will against the wall, eyes dazed. "Sorry."

The loss of that insistent heat burrowing against him left Will feeling cold, he hooked a leg around Jem's waist, drawing him back in so that they were once again flush, bodies slotted together like two puzzle pieces. Made for each other.

"Don't," Will whispered, fingers tracing the ever darkening blush on Jem's face. "I like Alpha James."

The slim boy laughed, burying his face into Will's neck and muffling his chuckles, body shaking. They clung to each other like that, laughing and whispering into the night as London passed by just a few yards away at the entrance to their quiet little alley, undisturbed.

Even when eventually— unsurprisingly— one's lips once again sought the other's, and the sounds emanating from their private world turned from soft and playful to desperate and wanting. Even when their bodies began to move together to their own private rhythm, hard and aching, seeking a delicious friction. Even when fingers, fumbling and needy, explored skin with reckless abandon, tracing the line of a hip here, clutching the curve of a thigh there. Even when Jem, still pinning him against the wall, took Will in his hand, stroking as Will breathed moans into the other's skin. Even when Will exploded into a shuddery, gasping finish, galaxies exploding behind his closed lids, Jem's name on his lips, did they remain undisturbed.

Jem finished just after him, falling apart like a dying star, slowly and soundlessly. Will watched it happen with rapt attention, drinking in the sight of Jem's pleasure like a man starved. Head thrown back, mouth open and panting, eyes screwed shut, body taught and stringing in his arms; he had never seen something quite as entrancing. He wanted to hear the quiet 'oh' of Jem's surrender every day until they day they died.

He hadn't realised he had spoken aloud until the sound of Jem's voice, lazy and sated, drifted into the night, "I do say that sounds quite tiring."

"Hmm, I don't think I mind all that much," a flashback of Jem, holding him tight, sucking his mark into Will's skin, made him smirk. "Especially if it means you'll ravish me again."

"I did not ravish you!" Jem protested, mock offense in his tone as he fought s smile. Will could still see it though, in the slight crinkle at the corner of his dancing eyes, the floaty note of happiness in his voice.

"Jem, you still have me against the wall, I feel like an innocent damsel in the arms of her experienced lover," Will laughed as the other boy blushed furiously, releasing his hold and leaning on the wall at Will's side.

"Experienced lover, indeed," scoffed Jem, tilting his head so that it rested against Will's shoulder. Will hadn't known how tense he had become at Jem's absence until he once again relaxed as they reestablished contact. He smiled softly down at his parabatai and knew that this was how it was supposed to be, them together, always.

"I'm not going to be like your books, Will," there was a note to Jem's voice that gave him pause, a soft, almost shy tremble that Will hadn't heard since they were children and Will had asked Jem to sleep in his bed with him.

"What do you mean?"

"I'm not like your heroes, I'm not perfect, or strong, or terribly handsome and experienced," there was humour in the last statement, a self deprecating kind that made Will frown. "What I am trying to say is; I'm not going to prevail against the odds, or make a happy ending. This won't be like in a story, if there even is a 'this' and I'm not being horridly presuming. I'm very human, Will, so fragily, mortally human."

With the soft play of the streetlamp's light on Jem's face, bathing him in muted colours, Will watched as doubt and uncertainty hunched Jem's shoulders under their daunting weight and his heart clenched. Carefully, as if not to startle the silver Shadowhunter, his cupped his fingers on Jem's jaw, stroking the skin there almost reverently.

"You once told me that an old Chinese belief was that everyone was tied to their soulmate by an invisible red thread, that this person would be exactly what the other needed. Did you know that the first time I kissed you was one of those rare days of sunshine in London? You were silhouetted by the light coming through the window, so bright I had to squint. In that moment, blinded by the light, it appeared as if little red strings were beaming their way from you to me. In that moment I knew that I was made for you, Jem Carstairs, that I was yours to command, to love or to cast aside, you are my purpose, my souls other half, my religion. You are my very lifeblood."

" _Will_ ," Jem breathed, awestruck and reeling, his silver irises dancing across his face, as if trying to memorise every dip and curve. He studied Will as if he were a piece of art, and Will returned the look. 

"I love that you are human," he declared, dragging Jem's face close enough so that the clouds of their breath in the cold London air mingled into one. "So beautifully, passionately, carefully human." 

Jem surged forward and captured Will's mouth with his own. This time it was slow, a smouldering candle instead of a blazing inferno. Their already kiss-swollen lips moved gently together, more intense for its slow, burning pace. Jem finally pulled away, a smile softer than starlight curving over his face as he rested his forehead on Will's shoulder. 

"I'm not good with words like you are, I lose myself in music not poetry, God knows I must have written you a hundred songs in my daydreams, dreamed you a thousand orchestras in my sleep," he was blushing again, soft pink dusted on porcelain. Will knew that if anyone were to look at him then they would see him practically glowing. Music was like Jem's second heartbeat, he remembered those times between wakefulness and slumber, when Jem would lazily tap whole songs onto Will's skin using phantom piano keys, humming the tune gently. The fact that Jem would make music for him? Something so precious and fragile curled gently around his wildly beating heart, warming him from the inside. 

"I love you, William Herondale, in this life and every life after that," the faith and conviction Jem put into those words had Will clutching his arms, never wanting to let go. Jem was his earthbound star, and Will was mesmerized. 

"I love you, Jem Carstairs, my saviour, my soul, my only sin." Will had been wrong, there was salvation. 

It was polished silver and burnt sugar, the lonesome cry of a single violin in the dead of night, slender lines and smooth skin, soft whisperings in another land's tongue. Salvation didn't lie in the hands of a cold God and his ruthless Angels, at least not for Will. No, Will's salvation lay somewhere very different; in James Carstairs. 

"Forever and always."


End file.
